This is one of the many appropriate thrads for this so that, ergo, means it is the best appropriate place for this.

I've been working in a sheet metal shop. Setting aside how much I hate it, I'm equal parts perplexed and proud of this most pettiest of "accomplishments." I present to you my EDC, or in the parlance of the commoner(s), my "every day carry." The things I have and use most often in the course of my jerb duties. ( "doody")

Things you'd expect in a metal shop of this sort: The tape measure and metal gauge. Marking tools - the fat marker and the wax pencil. From this angle, you can't see that the thing upon which they are sitting is bent. I use that to hold the paper packages, the paperwork "cut plans" that accompany the "nest." On the top end it has a double bend to provide a handle, the binder clips and magnet (formerly a super strong magnet that was slightly degaussed by being tack welded) to hold the papers when I have to use a fan BECAUSE SUMMER IS REALLY HOT AND IT REALLY SUCKS.

But then that leaves the center franken-object. That little scraper thing is a finger saver. I use it to separate flat-laying metal from the conveyor belt, which is how it is delivered. The oddly perplexing/surprising thing about that is when everyone is impressed with how handy it is for that exact purpose. No. I'm not lying. I've had numerous people in the shop - long time operators not just newbs - say "hey, that's neat. i should get me one of those!" (Which no one ever does, so I'm p much alone in using this kind of tool for this purpose.) They all seem content to struggle or slide the parts to the edge of the belt before lifting them off. PEOPLE ARE WEIRD AND INSIST ON DOING SOMETHING THE VERY HARDEST WAY. Duck taped to the scraper is a center punch I use to pound out sticky slugs what didn't fall out of the parts during creation.

Spent a part of the weekend assembling and installing the white square thing you can see above the fan in this picture. (We'd cut the wood before, and Mrs. S had painted it white; yesterday, I installed 2X2 railings on either side of the 4X6 beams, 1X2 reinforcing pieces on the plywood platform that would slide atop the railings and support the fan, and helped our son to finish the fan assembly.)

Our daughter, whose house this is, has always wanted one of those palm-leaf fans.

If you know Xerox, you know they give you no hardware manuals, no nothing. Even the instructions for replacing consumables are only included in their packaging. We only know what the error codes mean because of other desperate people asking other desperate people on the internet.

So I was understandably nervous when I was asked to clean out the blue dust that was messing up every page. You have to dig pretty deep to get anywhere. Some Xerox have everything nicely arranged in slide drawers? Not this one.

Clean it out, and the transfer belt mysteriously stops working... Four disassemblies and reassemblies later, it's still malfunctioning and has developed a clicking noise... I doubt there's anything wrong mechanically, maybe it's starting in the wrong place, hitting an end stop and giving up? So I resort to an old inkjet trick - unplug it right in the middle of it moving its motors. That seemed to reseat something and it stopped clicking and coughed back into motion.

For a few months, we've had a single solitary cottontail living in our front yard. I think she was recently widowed, because it's very unusual for bunnies to live on their own like that. (It's also strange because we usually have tons of bunnies in the front yard. Maybe that tree coming down had something to do with it. I dunno.)

Anyway, she was pretty lonely, and would actually come up to people and everything, and I felt really bad for her, so I started putting out a lot of treats like greens and bananas, both for her and ideally, to attract other bunnies so she could have friends.

I bought some shoes. While you smile and nod and remark "That's p petty, bort," let me asplain.

I bought some shoes at the store. The last time I remember doing that was... well, many years ago. To contextualize this, it was in a time when I was prolly at my heaviest. It was mildly traumatic to be honest. I remember not being able to sit in the chair and comfortably reach my feet well enough to tie the shoes I was trying to purchase. Embarassingly enough, the store clerkman felt compelled to tie the shoes for me.

So, for many years I either bought some form of slip on or shopped via the onlines.

It wasn't really until recently - say, the last couple of months - that I realized I was stooping down a lot easier. No wheezing or doing some kind of breathing/holding excersize to psych myself to crouch down. It really hit home last week or the week before when I squatted down on my haunches (not quite sitting on my ankles, but only because that's uncomfortable on me joints) doing some work thing or other.

So. I boughten some nice new regular big boy lacing sneakers today. Though I shopped at one of those mostly self-serve style stores.

Cleaned out the heat pump and checked it over, it's running fine and just in time, 23 and muggy today. Most of the dust I swept out seems to have made its way into my lungs, tho. *cough cough* And like a dumbass I didn't use a breathing filter from the ten pack I have right beside the broom I was using.

I started cleaning up one side of the house. Y'see, the side of the house with the gate has all of our multitude of sins -- long-assed fence lattice pieces, spare lumber, and all the other outdoor crap that doesn't fit or is impractical to keep in the shed on the other side of the house. That side is the only unfinished part of the house, as the rest is neatly but lavishly landscaped thanks entirely to Mrs. Puppet's vision and insistence on actually doing it.

So, it makes more sense to get that outdoor crapola over there. So I got the messiest, most debris-laden stuff moved over there, with the rot-prone stuff neatly stacked on the shed's slab, doubling as a better pug barrier than what I'd had there before.

Am building a chicken coop using a hybrid of these ice shack plans so it's light enough to move around, and the nesting box plans from this coop. So far have the floor framed up; put wire mesh in one side of the plywood to keep fisher-cat type varmints from chewing through the floor; some vinyl flooring on the other side to make it really easy to clean.

Tomorrow, building the framing for the walls, then moving all the pieces to the back yard to start the assembly process. Also putting together a temporary pen as the chickens are arriving tomorrow, and the coop will not be ready for another day or few.

This is probably a little premature since it hasn't happened yet; but the probability of happening is rather high.

My oldest is graduating from high school Saturday. I take credit for providing the superior genetic material and guidance required to produce a fully functioning college age person with good prospects.

She gets partial credit for attending school, getting all As for 4 straight years, getting voted as one of 10 outstanding seniors by her teachers (out of ~660 in her class), keeping her nose clean, and stuff.

Her mom helped here and there too and took care of the icky girl stuff.

__________________
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?" super extreme advanced boss mode:

I have a desktop computer handed down (up?) from Little Miss JoeP who was forced to get a more powerful machine for her animation and rigging and modelling and compositing and rendering. It has all sorts of issues with no obvious causes and she needed to get on with work rather than spend time trying to figure out what's wrong with it. It's passed memory tests and power supply tests.

Anyway the latest failure was that it just wouldn't power on after being shut down.

Tried turning it on again: didn't power up.

Tried holding the power button for >10s: didn't power up.

Tried unplugging the mains, leaving it disconnected for >30m, plugging in and trying again: didn't power up.

Opened up the case, disconnected the 24-pin ATX motherboard PSU cable connector, testing the voltages with a multimeter (they were all fine), plugged it back in and turned the system on planning to test the voltages on load.

System powered up and booted normally.

So the new line is "Have you tried turning it off, disconnecting the 24-pin ATX motherboard PSU cable connector, reconnecting it, and turning it on again?"

(Yet another unexplained issue that randomly appears and goes away. The only thing left to try is exorcism.)

Some number of weeks ago my glasses went missing. I still have my sunglasses, so I'm okay outdoors during the day and driving and stuff, but I'm not cool enough to pull off glasses indoors for things like work and Magic the Gathering. So I've been squinting a lot and telling myself I need to make an appointment to get them replaced, but not actually doing so.

Well, yesterday when I was cleaning out some stuff in the house, I found 2 eyeglass cases in a file drawer. I was like "omg, are they backup glasses?" but I didn't get my hopes up because knowing me they were more likely to be backup cases. But they were glasses! Both of them! And they had lint-free cleaning cloths in them, too.

Hallelujah, I can SEE! And I didn't have to call anyone or go anywhere or spend money to make it happen.